Thursday, March 31, 2011

I interrupt my Europe photo-diary with this extremely irrelevant post about butter. It had to be done because I think this is utterly genius! I can't tell you how many times I've resorted to shoving bread into the tiny mouths of those butter containers while travelling. I really hope this concept of packaging gets picked up!

If there's one thing I learned while doing these little on-the-go photoshoots while travelling, it's that you must undergo a series of awful and awkward photos before getting even one mediocre shot. Why I chose to post the outtakes, I do not know but I will likely regret it later. This is the second installment of my Europe photo-diary.

Day 3

Still in Nordlingen, Germany, we spent the day visiting a series of castles, historical buildings, and cathedrals. After following the tour, we had a couple hours of free time in the small town to grab lunch and do a little shopping. A couple of us weren't particularly hungry so we chose to have somthing light at the Rathauscafe.

I had a little pastry that was nicknamed "elephant ear" and the boyfriend had this funny looking thing which was surprisingly delicious. At this cafe started the search for the best cappucino in Europe. This one was very good but not the one I declared thebest.

One of two Chinese restaurants spotted in all of Europe we visited.

After lunch we visited a ton of trinket shops where I made my first purchases on a collectible, handcrafted ceramic elephant and a tiny coat of arms pin of Nordlingen. For bragging rights, above I posted a photo of my band's poster on a street corner in that lovely town. I'd say we were pretty famous. Later on that day we played our first concert which went extremely well. So well that we were paid for a free concert! I guess that makes us professional musicians.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

After fifteen grueling, wonderful, tiresome, exciting, and lovable days, I'm back! It feels good to be home though I miss it so much there. The last two weeks have been the most amazing two weeks I have ever experienced. It's one thing to go to Europe but to go to Europe as a band on tour is something completely different. It's almost indescribable how much fun we had and to tell you all this without sounding too frantically excited would be hard but I'll try my best to make sense of it all. I'm having trouble just giving an introduction right now so I think I'll get right to the post. Without further ado, this is day one and two of our Europe tour!

Day 1 & 2

On Saturday, March 12, we boarded our plane to Munich, Germany. It was hard to sleep through the eight hours without being extremely jittery and not to mention uncomfortable. The selection of movies and enjoyment of the miniature size of plane food got me through it. The view from my window was beautiful!

Landing in Munich!

The first thing I ate in Germany was a zebra doughnut at the hotel but boy was it a good doughnut. We stayed in the small town of Nordlingen. Our hotel was the most darling and homey, little place. Unfortunately, I didn't take photos of the room but you can see most views of the hotel here. My room was like a little loft with it's small upstairs area. Immediately after checking in, we went on a walking tour of the town.

I bought these shoes half an hour before arriving to the airport because I'm amazing at shopping. I ended up wearing them the entire trip.

The coolest toddlers ride their pretend cars on the streets.

Many people in Europe have the cutest dogs. It makes me a little jealous.

Strolling around before dinner, I stopped at shops here and there. I am absolutely in love with little, European towns like this.

That night we ate at Valentino's, an Italian restaurant in Nordlingen. It was when we first learned that Europeans are big on sparkling water. After this night, we always had to specify that we wanted tap water when ordering or else you would be brought the carbonated kind, which no one was really too fond of.

It was an amazing first day but there's still much to come!

Friday, March 11, 2011

Here I am, just hours away from boarding that plane to Europe. I actually have one more sleep to go before the big day and I haven't even finished packing. I'm running so low on time that I've resorted to using someone else's photo. This photo was taken by ornithes, otherwise known as Annabel from blushing ambition. She is the girl behind one of my favourite blogs. I hope to take a photo like this over the clouds while we're flying. I'm crossing my fingers we'll be over the clouds during a sunrise or sunset. I still can't even fathom that I'm going to Europe tomorrow! I guess it'll all start to kick in while I'm on the plane, in the air, or arriving in Europe. But alas, I must let go of my blog for a little while. I promise that when I return I will have a plethora of posts for you! I plan on taking plenty of photos in Europe. Goodbye, my lovelies! See you when I get back.

Ciao!

Sunday, March 6, 2011

I'm still here! I haven't abandoned ship quite yet. I'm just catching a little downtime before I head back out to do more shopping for my Europe trip.

A couple weeks ago I was downtown with some friends on a school trip. We went to visit the Tim Burton exhibition, which I highly recommend you see if you're living in Toronto abouts the TIFF Bell Lightbox or in New York near the MoMA. We finished quite early and were set free to reek havoc downtown. Upon visiting Urban Outfitters I came across the ceramic elephant ring holder I've been so eager to have. It was on my wishlist ages ago but had gone out of stock. I was bursting at the seams with joy to see two little elephants perched up on a wooden table. The lovely Sonya kindly offered her credit card because I, being the unprepared shopaholic I am, fell short of change. Let this be my official and public thank you note to Sonya. I owe you!

This little, charming elephant completes me. As a collector of elephants, this one could not go unnoticed. I had to have it. There's also something adorable and utterly amusing about being able to stack rings on an elephant's face. I only own maybe three or four small rings, but I'll buy more just to get use out of it's trunk.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Guten tag! Just thought I'd let all my little cherry blossoms know that I'll be leaving for Europe on Saturday, March 12th. I'm pretty much giddy at this point knowing that I'm getting on a plane in 6 days, 18 hours, and 42 minutes. For those of you completely in the dark about this, I'm going on a Europe tour with my school's senior band! We've been rehearsing like mad musicians for the past couple weeks and now we're just about ready. While in Europe we'll be visiting four countries: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy. We'll be playing six concerts altogether. Other than that it's mostly travelling by bus, rehearsing, and of course, sightseeing. Expect lots of photos when I come back! Unfortunately, I cannot post while I'm there. I'm packing as light as possible, which means no laptop. This puts me in a bit of a blunder because I'm pretty certain I'll take over 8GB's of photos. I guess I'll have to butter up a friend who is bringing a laptop to transfer my photos. I'm also planning on bringing my darling Pentax! The locations will make for some beautiful shots.

But enough of my rambling. I've seemed to get a bit off track making the photos of this post entirely irrelevant, though I did edit these photos with Milan in mind. Milan is one of the stops on our trip and just happens to be recognized as a world fashion and design capital. I guess you could say I was going for a hint glamour in these pictures. Please enjoy this small compilation from the last week or two.

I'll be terribly busy this next week before take-off. I hope to post maybe one or two more times before I leave but if not, this is my farewell! I'll be gone from March 12th to March 26th. It'll be a lonely two weeks with you, blog. But for now, ciao!